|
|
|
|
|
Go Tell it
on the Mountain
James Baldwin
Reviewed by Steven G. Fullwood
If
James Baldwin were alive today, can you imagine him sipping a café
au late at Starbucks on 125th Street? Neither can I. Personally, I
picture James at the Lenox Lounge, West 22nd's or at Nikki's,
sprinkling his conversation with French because he's had a wee bit
too much to drink. I'd hang out with him, read him my bad poetry,
and listen to him regale me with stories about his childhood, much
of which was fictionalized in his first novel, Go Tell It On The
Mountain.
|
|
|
|
To Buy
Click Here
|
|
First published in 1953 and now
an American classic, Go tells the story of John Grimes, a 14-year
old black boy coming of age in Harlem. Based on the author's
experiences as a teenaged preacher in a small revivalist church, Go
describes two days and one long night in the life of the Grimes
family.
|
|
|
|
As a voracious reader growing up in
Ohio, I was enraptured by the stunning descriptions of life in Harlem:
chocolate, caramel and crème-colored brothers and sisters, high-stepping
out their brownstones dressed to the nines, on their way to the Savoy,
or The Apollo or the Cotton Club. However, Go, told me a different
story, much like my own. We bear witness to both saint and sinner
waiting on God's justice to smite their enemies, no matter if that enemy
is dad, mom, brother or sister.
|
|
ADVERTISEMENT
Support MOSAEC, Visit Our Sponsors
|
|
|
|
Born out of wedlock, John questions his
role, indeed his life as an impending preacher. John's hatred of his hardened stepfather
Gabriel is equally matched by Gabriel's own seething loathing of John. Gabriel is a
sanctimonious deacon who rules the Grimes family with a Bible and his fist. Caught in the
middle is Elizabeth, John's mother, a loving, but sad woman who does her best to support
her husband and her four children. Florence, Gabriel's sister and blood link to his
troubled past, is an sickly woman whose salvation is firmly rooted in examining the
choices she made earlier in life.
Baldwin weaves a complex tale of how
Gabriel, Elizabeth and Florence came to be in the rural South, all of
whom migrated to the northern ghetto. Each character quietly remembers
his or her past prior to John getting the "holy ghost" on the threshing
floor of the Temple of the Fire Baptized church.
Essentially, Go is a ritual about love and its denial.
Steeped in biblical references and vivid realism, Baldwin shows home as family and family
as home, where geography transcends time and space. Written in clean, cool prose, Go
clearly demonstrates that no one escapes the complexity of what it means to be human, what
it is to suffer and how it feels like to be moved by the breath of God.
M
August 1999
|
|
|
POST YOUR COMMENTS!
Click Here
|
|
|
| |
|
Vote for MO'
Make Donation Below |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
